Marree and Lake Eyre

9th November with a certain amount of excitement we headed off to Marree for our scheduled flight over Lake Eyre, keeping in mind this was what had possessed us to proceed south so directly and not delay too much site seeing on the way. Really I don’t know if I was excited about seeing bloody Lake Eyre or the fact that once we had done it I could go into super slow mode, and I am inclined to think there was quite a bit of the later in my mood.
Whereas the landscape from Hawker north includes views and a reasonable proximity to the western side of the Flinders Ranges, by the time you get to Leigh Creek you have moved further away and the landscape becomes flat arid looking desert country covered in silvery green salt bush that has its own beauty particularly if you don’t have to live there. On the way to Marree we detoured slightly to have a look at ‘Farina’ a ghost town remains of a town once called ‘Government Gums’ the townsfolk were so sure of its grain growing potential that it changed its name to Farina, meaning flour. The remains can be seen of the original 2 pubs, churches, one or two shops a school, police station and a brothel that we couldn’t find, although most of it now is brick remains and junk its history is interesting and it was amazing how many people from Farina served in the two great wars.
We also discovered a really nice grassed area for camping in the creek area behind the ruins, with flushing toilets and showers based on an honesty box system, turns out it is referred to in the Camps Australia Wide book 5, certainly a place worth remembering for future trips in this locality.
We arrived at Marree around mid-day, this is a description of Marree from one of our Travel Books: ‘Marree is the perfect image of a tiny outback town’, it’s the start (or finish) of the Birdsville and Oodnadatta Tracks. ‘The settlement was established in 1872 as a camp for the overland telegraph line construction and also became the rail head for the Great Northern Railway later to become the Ghan’. Marree serviced all travellers and workers heading north including the famous Afghan traders who drove their camel trains into the deserts playing a significant role in opening up the outback, old occupied houses in an area known as the Afghan quarter look like they may well be remnants of the era.
Marree is a small settlement in a large salt plain desert, it was bloody hot and the flies too friendly, we went to the pub for lunch as the story has it the pub is a great place and really good food, a small tourist bus was in and its occupants were in the pub having very well barbequed sausages and last weeks salad (lets face it the nearest Fresh food Woolies is 340 something Kls away in Port Augusta). The publican, not young but a huge man glared at us for even stepping foot in the hotel and promptly growled when asked, the counter lunch was $15.00 you guessed it, very well BBQ sausages and salad ALL YOU COULD EAT, literally there was nothing else, and no way Nancy was going to pay $15.00 bucks for sausages Christ!!! So we went back to where we had confirmed our flight boarding pass at the servo and paid $9.00 each for a hamburger, with the works mind you. By this time it was 1:00pm and we weren’t due out at the airstrip until 3:45pm, this would then give us an opportunity to sightsee Marree, which we did and after that at ten past 1:00pm we found the only tree giving some shade and parked there for the next few hours trying to be positive. We did drive a hundred metres up the Birdsville Track so we can say we have driven on the Birdsville Track. (big deal).
3:45pm saw us out at the airstrip crowding behind the airport office (demountable shed) with a bunch of aboriginal kids their teacher and a couple of mums all of us trying to get some shade and collectively flapping at the ever friendly flies. The kids were taking it in turns three at a time to have a helicopter ride, take off one circuit of the town and land, all just a few minutes but the look on their faces on return was something to behold, thank you Julia Gillard.
Our plane was a single engined 7 seater piloted by a lovely young lady celebrating her 21st birthday, she was a very competent pilot who’s objective is to fly for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Nancy being the smallest had to sit on her own right at the back, I was the heaviest so I got to sit up front as co pilot, not that I’m over weight it’s just the other people were all frail looking, and regardless we all had a good view.
Once airborne our course tracked in a straight line for the Cooper Creek where a ‘punt’ ferries cars and cattle on hoof across the flooded Cooper, below us the Birdsville Track snaked from one side of the plane to the other, sporadic side tracks indicating where station homesteads are situated, the land is red and sparsely green we are seeing it at the best its been in 20 years and even from 3,000ft it still looks hard and desolate and so remote.
We dropped to 500 odd feet and did a big U turn round the punt then heading west all the time flying over the flooded Cooper, reminding me a lot of the wetlands around Kakadu, water birdlife was abundant with flocks of black swans, pelicans and numerous other smaller species probably ducks and the like scattering out below us like giant fans still not acceptant of the noisy big bird above them. Our lovely young pilot with her long fair hair and slim legs clad in tight jeans (can’t remember her name I’m not very good at remembering names) explained to us that because of the salt content of Lake Eyre there was very little bird life around the lake and most of it was to be found around the Cooper where we were currently flying at around 500 feet or so. And so onward we flew westward leaving the Cooper well behind until eventually shimmering in the distance a long white slick stood out on the horizon and as we got closer the white turned to blue, then a shore line was apparent and we were suddenly flying over Lake Eyre North, the white we could see was the dry salt layer edge exposed as the lake receded or was never covered by water, as you fly above the water it looks a pinky colour (don’t know why), we flew on passing over several small islands where we could see a few pelicans but that was all and you got the distinct impression the water wasn’t very deep I believe a couple of metres at most and being brown with a very high salt content I would suggest that is what is reflecting the light to look a pinky colour. Eventually when we could just see a horizon in the western distance we turned south to head for home and once again fly over arid sparse country with just the odd station road visible and kilometre after kilometre of sand dunes all running parallel in one direction. We crossed the dingo fence and shortly after we were once again in sight of Marree township all up two hours flight time, what a fabulous experience, that’s our Xmas present to ourselves we’ve been extravagant with our presents this year.
And so we returned to Lyndhurst satisfied we had finally seen something that had only happened 3 times in 150 years and even it happens again next year who cares we’ve seen Lake Eyre with water in it.
I cannot remember off hand, statistics from our flight but I do remember that the lake is extremely salty, far saltier than the sea and a lot more salty than the Dead Sea so theoretically you shouldn’t be able to sink in it and obviously there are no fish in it. Our flight was two hours flying time, 4 – 6:00pm a really good time, the sun being low in the sky meant shadows were cast and therefore features stood out better than if the sun was directly overhead.
A cold beer at the Lyndhurst Hotel was very welcome and it was one of those nights that the temperature didn’t want to come down.